Prosecutor: Ex-Brick School Administrator Failed To Reveal 1990 Drug Conviction

Andrew J. Morgan, the former interim director of special services for the Brick Township School District, failed to reveal a 1990 conviction on heroin and cocaine charges on his job application with the district, the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office has confirmed.

Morgan, 65, was charged Thursday along with Brick Schools Superintendent Walter Uszenski and Uszenski’s daughter, Jacqueline Halsey, in a scheme that supplied Halsey with full-time day care for her preschool child paid for by the Brick Township schools, with official misconduct and theft by deception, said Al Della Fave, spokesman for the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office.

The prosecutor’s office also alleges Morgan submitted false information in his application for employment with the Brick Board of Education.

That allegation stems from Morgan’s conviction on drug charges in 1990, which, Della Fave said, Morgan failed to disclose on the application, marking “no” on the question of whether he had ever been convicted of a crime.

>> RELATED: Brick Schools Superintendent, Two Others Arrested, Charged In Day-Care Scheme

According to a 1989 report in the New York Times, Morgan was arrested and charged with selling cocaine on five occasions, in amounts ranging from a half-ounce to more than 3 ounces, to undercover detectives assigned to the Brooklyn District Attorney’s investigation unit.

Morgan -- who taught English to 9th and 10th graders in a special education program at Canarsie High School -- also was charged with possession of cocaine, as well as with conspiracy to sell heroin, in which he is said to have agreed to travel to Thailand to buy heroin for undercover agents posing as drug dealers. The heroin was supposed to be brought into this country concealed in disposable diapers, the authorities said.

Morgan later was convicted of felony drug charges, though a follow-up article in the New York Times does not specify the exact counts. Morgan, who had worked for the school for 20 years, was fired but later won a civil case against the schools over the firing, despite his conviction.

Morgan, whose wife Lorraine Morgan is the district’s academic officer, was hired in March 2013 by the Brick Board of Education, at the request and recommendation of Uszenski, to conduct an “audit” of the Brick schools special services section. Uszenski and Morgan knew each other and had worked together before 2013.

The audit sparked a plan that resulted in moving a number of the district’s special needs students from one school to another. That move was assailed by parents of Brick special needs students, who opposed the disruptions in their routine and questioned the speed at which the project was moving.

Morgan resigned from his position on Dec. 31, 2013. He received in excess of $60,000 in compensation from the Brick Board of Education between March 1 and Dec. 31, 2013, Della Fave said.

After his departure from the Brick school district, Morgan owned and operated Morgan Associates for Children with Special Needs, from the couple’s home in Edison, according to Lorraine Morgan’s state Department of Education School Ethics Commission disclosure statement filed April 30.